


Looking Back

by TrashFan



Category: Internet Personalities, Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Anorexia, Body Image, Bulimia, Dan Howell Needs A Hug, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Recovery, Relapse, he also needs to learn how to use his words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-11-17 05:32:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11268939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashFan/pseuds/TrashFan
Summary: For the first time in years, Dan can feel himself spiraling down. But he's over this, he can't be relapsing. As he continues to hide what's happening from Phil, things only get worse.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> READ TAGS FOR TRIGGER WARNINGS. This work will probably have 3-5 chapters, so not super long. For those who don't know, 1 stone= 14 pounds.

Dan wasn't sure how he came across it. It wasn't like he was scrolling through his tag or anything, it just...popped up. Snuggled into the browsing position on the oh-so-familiar couch, in the not-so-familiar new apartment, he was suddenly staring at the picture _._ It must have been from five or six years ago, judging by the hair. To someone else, this would have been just another photograph of the semi-celebrity. Dan was looking down and off to the side, the very top of his chest revealed underneath his white tee shirt. A grey cardigan and black skinny jean finished off the ensemble.

But Dan didn't see any of that. He saw his defined collar bones framing his slender neck. He saw his sloping arms, hardly any thicker at the shoulder than they were at the wrist. Dan saw skinny. He saw everything he had been, and everything he no longer was. His mind shouted at him a million reasons why it was a terrible idea, but he couldn't help himself. He began scrolling through _danhowell2011_ and then _danhowell2012_ and eventually _danhowellskinny_. He felt the Doritos in his stomach curdle. Intellectually, he knew that these pictures were him at his worst, his unhappiest, his sickest. But there's a big difference between knowing and feeling, and Dan felt nothing but longing for that body and disgust with his current one.

Later, looking back to that moment on the couch, Dan would like to say he fought the instinct. He'd like to say that he at least tried to deep breathe and remember everything he'd been taught over the years. But he didn't. Without stopping or thinking, he pushed his laptop to the side, hauled himself off the sofa, and made a beeline to the bathroom. Air coming into his lungs in short bursts, he began rooting around. _Where the hell had Phil put it?_ When the older of the two got a gym membership, a scale reappeared in the Howell/Lester home for the first time in ages. Phil thought Dan didn't know. But he'd seen the box buried in the bin. At the time, Dan hadn't thought much of it, realizing his boyfriend was just trying to be sensitive by keeping it from him.

He felt tears begin to burn at his eyes. He was being irrational, he knew that. But as he overturned every last thing in their bathroom, he didn't care. It has been forever since he'd weighed himself. How had he let himself slip for so long? Pulling the towels out from the small cleaning cupboard finally revealed the thin, automated, metallic black scale. Dan thought he would feel relief, but his heart just started beating faster.

He closed his eyes and stripped. First his shirt, then his trousers, then his pants hit the floor.

He stepped up slowly and tried to ignore the hammering in his ears. He looked down and almost fell backwards. Over 13 stone. How the hell was he over 13 stone? He looked down at himself and physically recoiled. His stomach was laden with lard, his hip bones nowhere to be seen.

Without thinking, without making a conscious effort, Dan stumbled over to the toilet. He had gotten as far as dropping to his knees and lifting the seat before he stopped. _Don't do this,_ the rational part of his brain called. _You don't need to do this. Remember your coping skills._ He gasped for air. He closed his eyes and tried to halt the spiraling thoughts. Dan had gone so long without a relapse, so long without being tempted to relapse, calming himself felt foreign. How had he done this?

Then he remembered. He clambered across the floor until he found his discarded jeans. He yanked his mobile from the pocket, praying he'd bothered to transfer the number when he switched phones. He almost cried when he found out he had.

_Bbbbbrrrrrrrrrrring_

Dan shouldn't be calling. This was dumb, he was past this.

_Bbbbrrrrrrrrrring_

It had been years, would he even remember Dan?

_Bbbbbbrrrrrrring_

He wasn't going to answer. Of course he wouldn't, why would he? Dan moved to press end call.

 _Bbbbrrrrr--_ “Hello?”

Dan pressed the phone back to his cheek. “Hello.”

“May I ask who's speaking?”

“D-doctor Muller, it's Dan. Daniel Howell. Back from-”

“I remember you Dan. How are you doing?”

He swallowed. “Actually...”

The man let out a kindly chuckle. “I suppose that was a dumb question for me to ask. Tell me what's going on.”

“It's, I've, I,” he swallowed. “I shouldn't be calling. I've not been your patient for years, I don't pay you, this is unfair. I'm sorry I bothered you. Thank you for-”

“Hey hey hey, slow down. Take a breath,” the doctor paused to take an audible deep breath over the line. “I'm not worried about any of that.”

There was a moment of silence. “Okay,” Dan said.

“Okay. Can you talk to me? Tell me why you called.”

“I saw pictures. Of myself.” he felt dumb saying it out loud. “From when I was skinny.”

“And that triggered you?”

He breathed out. “Yes.”

“So what did you do then?”

“Nothing. Not, I didn't,” he sighed. “I realized I'm fat and disgusting and I freaked out and now I'm in the loo on the phone with you.”

“Is Phil at home?”

“Yes? Yes, I think so.”

“I remember he seemed to be a comfort to you. Could you call him in to help you?”

He thought about Phil walking in to see a ransacked bathroom, a scale in the middle of the floor, and a naked Dan crouched near the toilet. “No. I can't do that.”

“Okay. What _can_ you do?”

He took sobering look around. “I can put the toilet lid down.”

“Good. That's a good step.”

“I-I can get up,” he said, struggling to his feet. He remembered this from his time in treatment, doing things one little bit at a time. “I can put on clothes.”

“That's good Dan. What else?”

“I can clean up the room and put the scale away.”

“You've bought a scale?”

He flushed and was increasingly glad that Dr. Muller couldn't actually see him. “It's Phil's.”

“Phil brought a scale into your house?”

“He hid it. I wasn't supposed to know about it, but I found it.”

“Oh. Okay.” there was a pause. “How do you feel about that?”

“About what?” Dan asked.

“That your boyfriend can have a scale but you can't.”

He cocked his head to the side. He hadn't really thought of it. “Just because I can't be normal doesn't mean Phil should live like a freak.”

“Do you really think that way? Do you believe you're a freak?” the doctor asked softly.

Dan sighed. “That's not what I meant. Listen,” he finished pulling up the zipper on his jeans. “I'm up, I'm dressed, and I need to start tidying. I'm okay now; crisis averted.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes. It's fine. Thank you so much Dr. Muller.”

“I'd like to discu-”

He hung up the phone and looked around the bathroom. He had been such a wreck he didn't realize just how much he'd torn apart. Dan sighed and started to get to work. In that moment, he decided not to tell Phil and make him worry over nothing. It was fine, this was a one time thing. It was fine.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Dan didn't worry about the picture incident becoming more than a one time thing. First off, it wasn't like anything had actually happened. He messed up the bathroom a little and made a phone call, that's all. Secondly, its cause was incredibly dumb. He had no idea why the old picture had set him off so much. He'd seen photos of himself from that time period countless times before, why should this one be any different? He supposed that after doing so well for so long, a random stumble was bound to happen. But mostly, Dan didn't worry about what had happened because he was too busy with other things. He spent so much time unpacking the very last of the moving boxes, finishing up changing all of his links and handles on various videos, and recovering from the inordinate amount of socialization he'd been doing, his mind didn't have space to be occupied with anything else.

That was, until circumstance forced it into his mind again. About a week after his intense call to Dr. Muller, Dan was at Tesco. His thoughts were wandering, only half-searching for the vitamins Phil had requested, when he stopped dead in his tracks. He had to blink a few times before he accepted what he was looking at. Staring him right in the face was his old favorite brand of diet pills. Dan reeled. When had Tesco started selling them? He used to have to go to a special pharmacy to find them. But there they were, inches from his face when he hadn't even been trying.

He picked them up with a shaky hand. The bottle was lighter than he remembered, and smaller. Easier to hide. A morbid curiosity gnawed at the back of his mind. He made a quick sweep of the shelves before finding them; his old brand of laxatives, which he picked up as well. The old gang back together again. He chuckled internally. He'd had his dark fun, time to put them back. But...his arm didn't want to return them to the shelf. Looking at those pill bottles brought back all kinds of memories of sleepless nights and stomach aches so bad he thought he was going to sink right into himself. But they also whispered to him about the times when he felt so gloriously empty, so clean. The times when he lost track of the hours since he'd last eaten, and reveled in the accomplishment. The scale going down, down, down, until it was almost bearable. Almost, but not quite.

What would that Dan think of this one, if he could see what he'd become in just a few short years? This flabby behemoth of a man that never left the couch and went days without the word “calorie” even crossing his mind. Old Dan would hate New Dan. In complete honesty, New Dan kind of hated New Dan.

So he didn't put the bottles back. He stuffed them in his basket and sped to the checkout. The entire time the voice of reason in the back of his head was trying to remind him of all the affirmations drilled into his very being, but Dan ignored all of it. He smothered it like the cellulite was smothering his bones.

 

~~~

 

 

“Hello?”

Dan jumped. “Hello?” he called, maneuvering his shopping bag behind his back as he closed the front door.

“How was the trip?” Phil asked, wandering into the room.

“Good. Uh, good.”

“Get anything interesting?”

He knew. How the hell did he know? “No...why do you ask?”

“I dunno, just asking. I missed you,” Phil said, walking over and giving him a light forehead kiss.

Dan's eyes fluttered shut. “I was gone an hour,” he said through a smile.

“An hour too long.”

“Hey, you could've come with me.”

The bright blue eyes widened dramatically. “And changed out of my pyjamas? Never.”

Dan chuckled. “You're hopeless.”

“Oh really?” Phil asked, snaking his arms around his boyfriend's waist.

The brunette jumped back, holding the bag further out of reach. “Sorry. Sorry, just uh, ticklish.”

Phil stepped back, his eyes scanning his boyfriend up and down. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I'm a little tired though, I think I'll take a nap.” Dan turned to the side and made his way towards the bedroom. He couldn't handle lying right now, it took to much energy to do convincingly.

“Hey,” Phil called, causing Dan to stop in his tracks. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he choked back.

He quietly entered the bedroom that the internet thought of as “Dan's.” In truth, the boys bounced between the two rooms depending on which sheets were clean and where they happened to end up, but it was usually “Phil's” they slept in. But Dan couldn't handle looking at the color, all the reminders of what a supportive boyfriend he had. He softly pressed the door closed, took the two pill bottles out of the Tesco sack, and set the rest of the items in the corner.

It felt like they were calling to him. Offering to take him back to the intoxicating euphoria of daily caloric intakes in the triple digits. At his best, even the double digits. _No,_ the voice of reason whispered. _At your worst_. That's what had been drilled into his head again and again in treatment. _Remember what it did to your health. Your mind. Your friends and family. Phil._ Dan tried to keep these things in mind, but he could feel the fat weighing him down, bowing his skeleton until he was just a rounded blob. When he was actively working on recovering, he focused in on the voice of reason until it won. But it had been so long since he'd had to use it, he'd forgotten how. It was still there though. It wasn't like in the early days of his illness, before he'd developed any tools to fight the thought spirals. In all honesty, Dan kind of missed those days. The time when he could restrict without anything holding him back.

But the bottles were calling to him. In one quick motion, he tossed them underneath his bed and threw himself onto the mattress. He remembered the day where everything came tumbling down. The day he had felt so fairy light he forgot to eat just enough protein to keep running. Details from that day were fuzzy, but one image was burnt into his mind crystal-clear. Phil's face as he frantically tried to wake Dan up from where he'd collapsed. The look in the older man's eye as it dawned on him that things were so much worse than he'd imagined. That devastation was what kept Dan rooted to the bed, not retrieving the magic pills from underneath.

But he couldn't help but think that everything would have been fine if he'd just had enough food to keep from passing out. He'd been careless, but he knew better now. _That's right,_ Reason told him. _You know better._ He was torn. He'd been in recovery for five years. He was the heaviest he had ever been. He didn't want to hurt his loved ones. He didn't want to be this massive.

Lying on that mattress, Dan was being ripped in two. But he was just whole enough, that when Phil called out asking what he wanted for dinner, he had the energy for three words.

“I'm not hungry.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love any feedback you have on this chapter or the first one!


	3. Chapter 3

Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Fanmail. Bills. Spam. The boys had just finished editing a video for the gaming channel, and Dan was decompressing with mindless email scrolling. He'd been doing a lot of mindless things lately to keep himself occupied. Every day he spent at least an hour designing a new, more refined profile pic, and every day he deleted it. Anything to keep his thoughts away from his not-a-problem problem.

It was while doing this that Phil called out to him.

“Hey Bear?”

“Hmm?”

“Where'd you put my vitamins?”

“What's that?”

Phil walked into the room, stifling a yawn. “What've you done with the new vitamins you got for me?”

Dan's head snapped up, looking at his boyfriend as he casually surveyed the bright bedroom. He said nothing.

“Babe?”

“I umm...” he swallowed, “I forgot them.”

“Oh.”

Dan closed his eyes and took a breath. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's fine.”

He shook his head. “No, it's not. I was so focused on myself I forgot to take care of you.” He opened his eyes to see Phil looking at him with a creased brow.

“Really, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal.”

Dan shut his laptop, pushed it to the side, and ran a hand through his hair. “Yes it is. I'm shitty boyfriend and a shitty housemate. I'm so sorry.”

“Woah woah woah, slow down there. That escalated really quickly,” Phil said, walking towards the bed. “It's just a bottle of vitamins. I love living with you and I love dating you and I love _you_. Okay?”

“I love you too.”

“Are...are you feeling alright?”

“Yes.”

But Dan was already gone. Phil shouldn't have to put up with his ridiculous moody bullshit, because that's all that this was. He was irritable because he hadn't eaten all day, and he just needed to get over himself and operate like a normal human. He continued to assure Phil that he was fine until the older man gave up and turned away. Because Dan was fine. He hadn't puked, he hadn't weighed himself again, he hadn't taken any of the pills from under the bed. Really he had just missed a few meals and tossed some food scraps out over the past few weeks; nothing to get up in arms about.

 _This is how it starts,_ the voice of reason whispered. Dan was really starting to hate it. _You're hiding food from Phil, throwing it away behind his back. Lying to him about having already eaten._ But he was still eating. And he wasn't obsessing over how many calories he was taking in (152 that day thus far). He was exhausted because he hadn't been getting enough sleep, nothing more.

Dan got out his phone to turn his thoughts elsewhere and he noticed a new voicemail.

“Hello Daniel, it's Dr. Muller calling to check in. I wanted to say that I'm truly glad you called me the other day and I wanted to know how you're doing. If you think-”

He pulled the mobile away from his face and deleted the message. If Phil heard it he'd get the wrong idea. And if Dan knew anything, it was that Phil didn't deserve to deal with his angsty shit. He could put on his big boy pants and take care of it himself.

Besides, everything was fine.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Dan's entire body was shaking as he stepped down. Reason reminded him to keep breathing so he wouldn't pass out, so he gasped in air. He didn't know what he'd expected when he'd gotten on the scale, but half a stone in a week had made his head spin. He remembered this, this champagne-floating joy as the numbers confirmed what his clean stomach screamed at him constantly. That he was getting smaller, lighter, better. Without meaning to, he did the math on what he could do if he kept this up. If he went even harder.

And that terrified him. As Dan stumbled backwards and let himself hit the bathroom wall, he had to actively focus on not hyperventilating. He couldn't keep going like this. He had to keep going. He was getting sick again. He was finally becoming less disgusting again. He leaned back and let himself slide down the wall until he was sitting. He shuttered as the fat on his stomach congealed into a roll. His lungs constricted and everything felt tight. Was it possible that the room was running out of air? Dan tried to suck more and more in but every breath just made it worse.

That's when he caught sight of himself in the full-length mirror. Huddled on the floor, pale, and shaking; he looked pathetic. For a brief second, before everything morphed, Dan saw the truth; a malnourished, dehydrated, stick-thin man in the middle of a panic attack. He blinked, and there again was the whale-blubber boy who needed to suck it up and continue on. He closed his eyes. The two parts of him were screaming opposite instructions and he was caught in the cross-fire. He felt so sick, and he just wanted it to end.

He opened his mouth the speak, but nothing came out. He swallowed and tried again “Ph-phil?”

Nothing.

“Phil?” he called.

A slight shift from somewhere in the house.

“Phil?!”

“Yeah?”

He wanted to sob in relief. “I need your....I need your help.”

Dan heard a chair creak and a few light footsteps. “Mmm? What's up?”

“I need,” his voice hitched. “Can you come in here please?”

There was dead silence and then faster footsteps. The doorknob started jiggling, causing Dan to jump in fright.

“Are you in here?”

“Y-yeah...please...”

“The door is locked Bear. Let me in,” Phil said, his voice close by and strained.

Dan tried to move, but his legs wouldn't listen. He tried to lean over to crawl there, but his arms were trembling too badly to put any weight on. Panic rose in his chest.

“I can't. Oh god, fuck, I can't. Shit Phil, please.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god, okay. Keep breathing, okay? I'm gonna, I...I'm gonna unscrew the doorknob, okay? I'm going to go get a screwdriver.”

“O....okay,” he muttered, but Phil was already gone.

He must've been looking for the tool for two minutes at the most, but Dan was shaking even worse by the time his partner returned. There was some metal-on-metal noises and reassurances called from the other side of the door, but he couldn't hear any of it, the ringing in his ears was too loud. The only sign of progress came from the quickly disappearing screws near the knob. Three left. Two left. One left. And then the handle was falling to the ground and the door was being thrown open.

Phil burst into the room with wild hair and wide eyes, looking around frantically. When his eyes landed on the scale, the discarded clothes, and the naked man trembling in the corner, his chest visibly deflated. Dan instantly regretted calling him in. Stupid. His idiotic freak out was hurting his boyfriend and it was all his fault. Phil was saying something to him, but the words didn't make sense. The room was spinning and black dots were starting to speckle the edges of his vision. Water. He needed water. He supposed he must have said something out loud, because the moment Dan realized this, Phil upturned the toothbrush cup, rinsed it, filled it with tap water, and crouched next to the brunette.

He tried to take the cup, but his hand wouldn't stay still long enough to grip it. Phil said something again, softer this time, and pressed a hand to Dan's face as he guided the drink to his lips. Dan swallowed again and again until he was just sucking in air. The water weighed heavy in his empty stomach, but it helped defog his mind some. He still couldn't breathe right, but he could make out the meaning of Phil's words. He was asking him if he could stand. Yes, he could. He bent his legs and tried to push himself up, but he found Phil's arm was snaked around his back, guiding him up gently. It was in this way that he was half-carried out of the bathroom and into the hall. Phil led him into “Dan's” bedroom and eased him down on the bed. Dan had enough shame to ask for his naked body to be covered with the blanket. Phil complied, and the cloth felt so heavy Dan thought he was going to be crushed. He let the black pull him into the temporary reprise of sleep, but not before hearing one last thing:

“I love you Dan. I'm so sorry.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to come. I would love to hear your thoughts on this section!


	5. Chapter 5

There's a certain feeling Dan always wished the English language had one word to describe. He'd felt it a handful of times in his relatively short life; the day after his nan died, his first morning in the hospital, in the aftermath of the Valentine's Day video fiasco. It's a feeling that can only exist in the moments between sleep and waking, when the air is still fuzzy and thoughts are forgotten as quickly as they come. After the uncomfortable realization that something isn't quite right tearing through your half-conscious self, but before you've figured out just what's wrong. Dan had managed a few times in the past to push the feeling away in time to have a few more stolen moments of uneasy sleep before reality hit him.

This morning was not one of those times. Upon waking up he felt the all-too-familiar blow of dread, followed immediately by the memories of what had happened the previous day. Dan felt the air flee from his lungs. Shit. Oh god, he'd messed up bad this time. He had pulled Phil into all of this and he was going to have to explain everything and it was gonna be just like last time.

He sucked in a breath and winced. It was only then that he realized a sharp pain was radiating from his stomach, it's probably what woke him up in the first place. He pressed a gentle hand to his abdomen and gasped. He rolled over to his side and pulled his legs into his chest, trying to find a position that would numb the pain. _No,_ Reason whispered, _not like last time. You can fight._

Dan began to push the voice down again before he paused. Ignoring Reason was what got him into this situation in the first place, and lying curled up in his bed with the walls of the new life he'd built himself crumbling, he figured he had nothing to lose. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what the doctors used to tell him, the actions that used to come so easily.

 _Uncurl. Take a deep breath. Hydrate._ Dan remembered his old instructions, struggling to do each one. The part of Dan that had been winning more and more lately screamed for him to stop, but he tried to ignore it and follow Reason's instructions. He took the glass of water off the bedside table with shaking hands and downed all of it. _Listen to your body. What's it telling you?_ Dan bit his lip and opened his eyes. It was telling him to eat. No that he was finally listening, that simple message that he was so used to ignoring or downplaying roared through his bones. But he couldn't. All that work, all the progress he'd made would be wasted. _Not progress, relapse._ Sometimes Dan hated Reason. All of this had been much easier before Reason had fully developed.

Dan repeated Dr. Muller's years-old advice again and again in his head. Take things one day at a time, one meal at a time, one bite at a time. That was all he was doing, eating one meal. He knew that he needed to look at this one hurdle, not the whole track. He placed his hands on the bed on either side of his body and swung his legs over the side, pushing himself to standing. When his vision was immediately blurred and his balance unsteady, he was forced to admit to himself just how overdue this was.

When the stars in the corners of his eyes finally faded, Dan made his way to the kitchen. Lately he hated this room, and instinct told him to get out of it as soon as possible. But look where instinct had landed him. He shook his arms out and began searching the pantry and fridge. His eyes went immediately to the celery, his favorite calorie-negative food. Baby steps were okay, right? _Protein,_ Reason yelled, the whispering phase apparently gone. _At least have some protein._ Dan sighed and pulled out the peanut butter. He spread it on slowly, forcing himself to dollop on as much as he could. In the end, that still wasn't a lot.

At the end of fifteen pain-staking minutes, Dan had a glass of water and plate of ten small celery sticks, filled with enough peanut butter to make them level at the top. He was on the way to sit down at the table to force them down when something glinted in the corner of his eye. The butter knife he'd used still had a line of peanut butter on it, resting there on the counter practically inviting mice over. He took a hesitant step over to it, then another. Fuck, he just wanted to act like a normal human being for once. Ignoring all the conflicting thoughts and feelings buzzing around his mind, he picked up the knife and slowly brought it closer and closer to his mouth.

“Dan?”

He jumped, knife clattering to the floor. “Ahg!”

“Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to surprise you,” Phil said, slowly taking stock of the scene in the kitchen. “What're you doing up?”

“What'd you mean?”

“Why're you up at four in the morning?”

“Oh. I didn't realize.”

Phil's eyes stopped on the table. He looked up at his boyfriend and cocked his head to the side.

“Yeah. I was hungry,” Dan let out a nervous chuckle. “Why is that so hard to say?”

Phil offered a soft smile. “Can I sit and talk with you while you eat?”

“Please.”

The boys took their usual chairs and Dan forced a nibble off the end. He hated how good it felt.

“Can we please talk about last night? And I guess everything leading up to it, everything I apparently missed.”

Dan winced. “It's not like that. This isn't on you.”

“I know, but I just wish I had...” he shrugged. “I dunno. How long has this been happening again?”

“I'm not sure? Maybe a month.”

Phil swore under his breath. “Do you know what brought up back to this?”

Dan took a bite of his celery, had a long drink of water, and told Phil everything that had happened the last few weeks. He hated doing it, and the look on Phil's face when he mentioned finding the hidden scale almost killed him. Halfway through, he started ugly crying. This, this was the disease. Not glamorous and skinny and “clean,” but disappointing the person he loved most and struggling to do basic human functions and feeling like complete and utter shit. It wasn't only Reason that realized this anymore, it was his whole being. Looking back at the pictures of himself, he'd seen the socially-approved product of being underweight, not the gut-wrenching reality of starvation. He wanted to melt into the floor. He hated that he'd fallen back into this.

When he'd finally finished everything, Phil spoke. “Was all that real?”

“What?” Dan asked, surprised.

“Did you leave anything out or make it sound better than it is? I love you Dan, and you know I'm with you in good and bad, but,” the older man's eyes grew shiny, “I can't take it if you're lying to me again. Last time around, never knowing what I was really dealing with, it killed me.”

A punch to the gut would have felt better. “No. Yes. I mean, that's it. That's all of it.”

“No lying. No deceit. Do you even want to get better?”

Dan let out a body-shaking sob. “Yes. I promise. For a moment these past few weeks I didn't know. But I can't, I can't, I can't,” he shuddered. “I can't do this.”

“Shhhh, it's okay,” Phil said as he took Dan's hand. “Good. That's so important. And I'm gonna help you however I can, but you remember how this went last time, yeah? You need to be the one to do the work. I'll give you as much support as I can, but only you can make you better.”

Dan squeezed his hand. “I know, shit do I know. But can you do me a quick favor?”

“Anything.”

He swallowed the final bit of the first piece of celery. “Get the pills from under my bed, throw them in the bin. And bring me my phone. I need to call Dr. Muller.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the final chapter! Sorry it took me so long to post. I hope you enjoyed it, and I would love any sort of feedback you can give.
> 
> I would like to note that this is by no means representative of all of the behaviors and thoughts of eating disorders and mental illness in general. I just used my own history and the perspectives of those I've talked to to form this. Everyone is different and experiences these things differently.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering what picture I was referencing (I DON'T own it or know who it belongs to. I just used google):  
> https://www.google.com/search?biw=1366&bih=662&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=dan+howell+skinny&oq=dan+howell+skinny&gs_l=psy-ab.3...77944.79623.0.79941.10.10.0.0.0.0.145.942.7j3.10.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.8.799...0j0i67k1j0i8i30k1.zUZvXrpOkQo#imgrc=XGqa985EWp9TRM:


End file.
